Eastern Software Systems: Carving A Niche

Eastern Software Systems was one company which more than sizzled with many significant events in 1999. The company witnessed venture capital funding from Intel and Citibank Finance. Other highlights include crossing the 100 sites limit and enabling ERP on the net three months ahead of schedule, thanks to Intel’s ‘paranoia’. However, the biggest achievement for the company has been the ability to sustain a single product in the domestic market, in a primarily export and service oriented industry.

Focusing on a single line vision of ‘1000 customers by the end of 2000’, future strategies are being shaped along the lines of this vision. The company is probably the only application service provider, both within the country and the continent to provide a complete ERP solution on the internet. It has already tied up with ISPs like
Dishnet, Bharti BT Internet and Wipronet to provide ERP solutions to their customers. Leveraging on the early entrant advantage, the company intends to cream off the market by tying up with most of the big ISP players and offer ERP on the net early on. The company has already three offerings for the product–the plain vanilla, hosting an internet server at the ISP’s end and providing solutions on a complete, secure network.

Another important area the company is looking at, is automating the supply chain and integrating its product MakESS into larger ERP solutions.

Companies like ITC or L&T, which are ERP enabled, would like to connect online to their distributors and suppliers to completely automate their supply chain. However, since most of the supply chain partners cannot invest in Mysap.com or Oracle Online.com, it would make a lot of sense to go in for low cost ERP packages. ESS is pitching in this segment and intends to do the needful standardization and customization to integrate with the existing ERP packages.

Another strategy is to tie up with the hardware vendor and bundle ERP software. The first such tie-up with Sun Microsystems is already in place and the company intends to have other tie-ups in the future. Another bold move the company intends to make by April, is to enable availability of its code to the developer community and partner with independent software vendors to add more value to its product.

What about the export market? Well, that is an important market for the company, but it will focus on that after building a base of about 350 to 400 sites. So this year, one would definitely see a lot of focus on the international market. With clear-cut strategies laid out, the company along with its SME ERP package will continue to sizzle this year too.